BOSTON BLOCKADE
WHILE John and Abigail were writing their letters in Philadelphia and
Braintree, Boston town was undergoing a winter of discontent indeed.
Ever since Bunker Hill and the burning of Charlestown, the British
troops had occupied the town, while Washington and his army lay encamped
in Cambridge and on Dorchester Heights, west of the city. In October,
the British command was transferred from General Gage to General Howe,
who proved a more energetic commander. He burned Falmouth (now
Portland), and threatened many other places. After the burning of
Charlestown, Franklin wrote:
"Britain must certainly be distracted. No tradesman out of Bedlam ever
thought of increasing the number of his customers by knocking them on
the head, or of enabling them to pay their debts by burning their
houses. It has been with difficulty that we have carried another humble
Petition to the Crown, to give Britain one more chance of recovering
the friendship of the colonies: which, however, she has not sense enough
to embrace; and so she has lost them for ever."
The rival armies watched each other closely, meantime passing the time
as best they might. Washington, with his newly levied troops, kept them
busy enough, marching and counter-marching, drilling and practising;
besides, the country was open to them on all sides, and they could come
and go as occasion required. The British troops, however, found time
hang heavy on their hands. Shut up in narrow quarters amid a bitterly
hostile population, often short of provisions and ruled by an iron hand,
they were having a forlorn time of it. One feels real compassion for the
ancestor of "Tommy Atkins": he was probably a very good fellow at heart,
as Tommy (to whom all honor!) is today. He had no personal quarrel with
the people of Boston; he did not care whether they were bond or free, so
he got his rations, his pint and his pipe. And here he was surrounded by
black looks and scowling faces, and could not so much as answer a gibe
or--possibly--prod an insulting urchin with his bayonet, without
bringing the whole hornet's nest of patriots about his ears. On the
other hand, if he were in any way remiss in his duties, he was flogged
with a brutality worthy of the Dark Ages. A forlorn winter for Tommy,
this of 1775-6. Small wonder that he was ready to lend his hand to any
mischief that promised relief from the monotony of daily life.
Obeying orders, the soldiers tore down many fine old buildings for
firewood, among them that of John Winthrop; cut down Liberty Tree,[15]
which yielded fourteen cords of fine wood; made havoc generally. The
grenadiers were quartered in West Church; two regiments of infantry in
Brattle Street Church, whose pillars saved it from sharing the fate of
the Old South, which was, as we know, used as a riding school by the
dragoons.
The British officers fared better than their men. They were quartered in
the homes of absent patriots. General Clinton was in the Hancock House,
Earl Percy in that of Gardner Greene, Burgoyne in the Bowdoin mansion;
while Gage and Howe successively inhabited the stately Province House.
The patriots, those who could afford to do so, had mostly left. Those
who remained were of the humbler class, with a sprinkling of physicians,
lawyers, and clergymen, who stood by their posts. Among the clergymen
was one with whose name I have a pleasant association: the Reverend
Mather Byles, pastor of Hollis Street Church. This gentleman was a
merry, as well as a devout person; full of quips and cranks, and not
always lacking in wanton wiles. John Adams quotes him as saying, when
first the British troops occupied Boston, that "our grievances would now
be red-dressed!" But my own thought of Mr. Byles recalls a story often
told by my mother, which she may have heard in childhood from her
grandfather, the old Revolutionary Colonel. It tells how one night the
Reverend Mather, returning home very late, passed by the house of a man
whom he greatly disliked. A sudden thought struck him; he went up the
steps and began to beat and bang on the door and halloo at the top of
his lungs. After some delay, the night-capped head of his neighbor was
thrust out of the window, demanding what was to do at this time o'
night.
"Have you lost a penknife?" asked Mr. Byles.
"No! Have you found one?"
"No, but I feel as if I should any minute!"
_Exeunt_ both parties, one chuckling, the other swearing.
The Tories, rich, prosperous, and loyal to King George, were ready
enough to help the officers in making merry. There were sleighing
parties, riding parties, parties of every description: no doubt the Tory
maidens found the winter a very gay one. Faneuil Hall was turned into a
theatre, and General Burgoyne wrote plays for it. A performance of
"Zara" was a brilliant success. After another performance, a farce
called "Boston Blockade," a "Vaudevil" was to be sung by the characters,
of which the following is a part:
Ye Critics, who wait for an End of the Scene,
T' accept it with Praise or dismiss it with Spleen;
Your Candor we ask and demand your Applause,
If not for our Action, at least for our Cause.
'Tis our Aim by Amusement thus chearful and gay,
To wile a few Hours of Winter away:
While we rest on our arms, call the Arts to our Aid,
And be merry in spite of the BOSTON BLOCKADE.
Ye tarbarrel'd Lawgivers, yankified Prigs,
Who are Tyrants in Custom, yet call yourselves Whigs;
In return for the Favors you've lavish'd on me,
May I see you all hanged upon _Liberty Tree_.
Meantime take Example; decease from Attack;
You're as weak under Arms as I'm weak in my Back,
In War and in Love we alike are betrayed,
And alike are the laughter of BOSTON BLOCKADE.
Come round then, ye Comrades of Honour and Truth,
Experienc'd Age and high-spirited Youth;
With Drum and with Fife make the Chorus more shrill.
And echo shall waft it to WASHINGTON'S Hill.
All brave BRITISH Hearts shall beat Time while we sing,
Due Force to our Arms, and Long Life to the King.
To the Honour of both be our Banners display'd,
And a glorious End to the BOSTON BLOCKADE.
As it turned out, the audience had not the pleasure of listening to
these polished verses. The performance was in full swing; a comic actor
held the stage, mimicking General Washington and holding him up to
ridicule, when a sergeant rushed on the stage, crying, "The Yankees are
attacking the works on Bunker Hill!"
The audience, supposing this to be part of the play, laughed and
applauded: a happy thought! a capital touch! What were their feelings
when the senior officer present rose and called, "Officers to their
posts!" The assembly broke up in disorder. The officers summoned their
men and hastened to Bunker Hill, where they arrived too late! Major
Knowlton, who had fought so bravely in the battle of June 17th, had paid
a second visit to the hill, burned some buildings and carried off
several prisoners.
Meanwhile the Tory ladies, deprived of their gallant red-coated escorts,
scuttled home as best they might through the dark, crooked streets, and
their patriot sisters, who had refused to go to the entertainment, made
merry over the episode for days afterward.
To lovers of Hawthorne, this story might well be followed by that
wonderful tale of "Howe's Masquerade,"[16] which used to thrill me as a
child, and which I cannot even now read unmoved. If not true in actual
fact, it gives with absolute truth the Spirit of Seventy-Six.
The winter was a mild one: all too mild for Washington. He was eager to
cross the ice on the Back Bay and attack the town; but the ice would not
bear. Week by week he watched and tested it; all in vain. It was not
till February, that "strong little month," that the real cold came.
"When the days begin to lengthen, the cold begins to strengthen." Day
followed day of keen, dry cold; night by night the ice "made," till a
floor of crystal, solid as rock, lay about the peninsula of Boston.
Washington called a council of war and urged an assault on the town.
Alas! his field officers demurred, shook their heads, would none of it.
Reluctantly he abandoned the plan, and determined to seize instead
Dorchester Heights and Noddle's Island (East Boston).
On March 2d, Abigail Adams writes to her husband:
"I have been kept in a continual state of anxiety and expectation ever
since you left me. It has been said 'tomorrow' and 'tomorrow,' for this
month, but when the dreadful tomorrow will be, I know not. But hark! The
house this instant shakes with the roar of cannon. I have been to the
door, and find it is a cannonade from our army. Orders, I find, are come
for all the remaining militia to repair to the lines Monday night by
twelve o'clock. No sleep for me tonight. And if I cannot sleep, who have
no guilt upon my soul with regard to this cause, how shall the miserable
wretches who have been the procurers of this dreadful scene, and those
who are to be the actors, lie down with the load of guilt upon their
souls?"
The story continues through the following days.
Sunday evening.
"I went to bed after twelve, but got no rest; the
cannon continued firing, and my heart beat pace with
them all night. We have had a pretty quiet day, but
what tomorrow will bring forth, God only knows."
"Monday evening. Tolerably quiet. Today the militia
have all mustered, with three days' provision, and are
all marched by three o'clock this afternoon, though
their notice was no longer ago than eight o'clock
Saturday. And now we have scarcely a man, but our
regular guards, either in Weymouth, Hingham,
Braintree, or Milton, and the militia from the more
remote towns are called in as seacoast guards. Can you
form to yourself an idea of our sensations?
"I have just returned from Penn's Hill, where I have
been sitting to hear the amazing roar of cannon, and
from whence I could see every shell which was thrown.
The sound, I think, is one of the grandest in nature,
and is of the true species of the sublime. 'Tis now an
incessant roar; but oh! the fatal ideas which are
connected with the sound! How many of our dear
countrymen must fall!
"Tuesday morning. I went to bed about twelve, and rose
again a little after one. I could no more sleep than
if I had been in the engagement; the rattling of the
windows, the jar of the house, the continual roar of
twenty-four pounders, and the bursting of shells, give
us such ideas, and realize a scene to us of which we
could form scarcely any conception. About six, this
morning, all was quiet. I rejoiced in a few hours'
calm. I hear we got possession of Dorchester Hill
last night; four thousand men upon it today; lost but
one man. The ships are all drawn round the town.
Tonight we shall realize a more terrible scene still.
I sometimes think I cannot stand it. I wish myself
with you, out of hearing, as I cannot assist them. I
hope to give you joy of Boston, even if it is in
ruins, before I send this away. I am too much agitated
to write as I ought, and languid for want of rest.
"Thursday. All my anxiety and distress is at present
at an end. I feel disappointed. This day our militia
are all returning, without effecting anything more
than taking possession of Dorchester Hill. I hope it
is wise and just, but, from all the muster and stir, I
hoped and expected more important and decisive scenes.
I would not have suffered all I have for two such
hills. Ever since the taking of that, we have had a
perfect calm; nor can I learn what effect it has had
in Boston. I do not hear of one person's escaping
since."
Abigail need not have suffered even this momentary discouragement, could
she have foreseen the outcome of these hours of suspense. The cannonade
which so shook the neighboring towns was ordered by Washington to divert
the attention of the British, and to drown the noise of carts crossing
the frozen ground: carts whose wheels were bound with straw, and before
which the road was strewn with straw, still further to deaden the sound.
General Thomas was moving from Roxbury to South Boston with twelve
hundred men. Silently, under cover of the darkness, and later of a thick
white fog, under shelter of that good thunder of the Cambridge guns,
they marched; silently, they took their new stand, laid down their arms
to take up pickaxe and spade. In the morning, when the fog lifted, the
amazed British looked out on a row of formidable entrenchments on
Dorchester Heights, just above their heads.
Great was the consternation. Howe summoned his officers, and prepared
for a counter-attack; but Dame Nature, apparently in league with the
patriots, responded with a furious storm which, lasting several days,
made the action from Castle Island which he had planned impossible.
During these days of storm, Washington was strengthening his defenses.
Howe looked, and realized that the game was up. Others realized it too:
the selectmen of Boston quietly intimated to him that if he left the
town uninjured, his troops would be suffered to embark undisturbed.
Washington gave no sign; waited, his powder dry, his matches burning.
Nor did Howe answer the citizens in words; no words were needed for what
he had to do. By daybreak on March 17th, the troops began to embark; by
nine o'clock the last boat had put off. Boston was evacuated, and
Washington and his Continentals entered the city.[17]
"The actors in the scene have vanished into deeper obscurity than even
that wild Indian band who scattered the cargoes of the tea ships on the
waves, and gained a place in history, yet left no names. But
superstition, among other legends of this mansion, (the Province House)
repeats the wondrous tale, that on the anniversary night of Britain's
discomfiture the ghosts of the ancient governors of Massachusetts still
glide through the portal of the Province House. And, last of all, comes
a figure shrouded in a military cloak, tossing his clenched hands into
the air, and stamping his ironshod boots upon the broad freestone steps,
with a semblance of feverish despair, but without the sound of a
foot-tramp."[18]
FOOTNOTES:
[15] It stood at the corner of Essex and Washington Streets.
[16] "Twice-Told Tales." Nathaniel Hawthorne.
[17] Be it remembered that Washington did not remain in Boston, but
anticipating Howe's attack on New York, was encamped in Brooklyn Heights
by April: these movements ended the operations in New England. New York
was the centre of the next campaign.
[18] "Legends of the Province House." Nathaniel Hawthorne.